I have a company laptop and want to use aptosid with this laptop. It is obvious that I don't want to change anything on the laptop, so my question. I read in the manual that it is possible to install aptosid with a standard installation on an usb-stick while grup will be installed on the stick itself. When doing so, does anything happen to the mbr of the laptop? Is it realy complete independent from the laptop? Really no change on the laptop?

However, one should note that with the latest aptosid at this time, that is aptosid-2011-1, one is able to do a hard-disk install on a usb stick. However, for this particular setup, update-grub does not work and reports missing open parenthesis, so one is unable to do any updates. I have been unable to find anything on this very particular issue in the forums.
It is a pity, because a hard-disk install on a usb stick is a great idea. It allows one to prepare up-to-date aptosid distros for newbies and, also, to test upgrades before committing to more permanent installations. My own greatest regret is that this worked in previous versions and does not work any more.

ggeorgan,
all that you praise as merrits of a real install on a usb-device also works (with the 'persist'-option) with just the iso on the device. the only thing that does not work with that is kernel-upgrades (so, if $user wants to dist-upgrade such a device, better remove the kernel meta-packages) the advantage of such an iso overlay over a real install is, that the former will boot anywhere, where booting from usb works.

greetz
devil

ggeorgan

Post subject:Posted: 22.04.2011, 07:10

Joined: 2011-04-22
Posts: 4

Status: Offline

Yes, the problem is most probably with kernel upgrades.
However, sometimes this is a broader problem for the not-so-sophisticated user. For example, my bluetooth mouse apparently needs the latest kernel upgrade.
I apologise for repeating, but the thing worked flawlessly before.

selecting grub to be installed only on the USB stick or SD card.
Then :

Code:

dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc

also selecting the USB stick or SD card to have grub on it.
Now, kernel updates on the USB stick or SD card can proceed as on normal hard disk installs.
Three remaining issues :
1. One should tweak the grub configuration files to have the grub menu on the USB stick or SD card to remove entries related to other OS's that grub finds on the computer
2. Whether aptosid installation media cab and need to be modified to render this process superfluous is an open question.
3. Grub business is risky, so one should not experiment with the suggestions in this post on computers with valuable data.